20151128 (secularigious)

Interior of the dome at the tomb of Pres. James A. Garfield and his wife at Lakeview Cemetery

Don’t get me wrong I like

Lakeview Cemetery the Garfield

Monument even their root beer

Which my son Nat bought when 

We were in their offices for

Something about burying Jean’s

Cremains a term I find impossibly 

Funny like so many other

Things about death memorials 

Burial of which I’ll write later 

For now it’s a beautiful

Spot I love the view from the 

Monument downtown the lake

Has an aspect appropriate to our

Not-quite-big city status even

Rockefeller’s gigantic obelisk

Has a reserved charm about it

The Wade chapel bears a

Non-denomination Unitarian

Universalist religiosity a tough

Trick to pull on an old lapsed

Catholic who sat through many

Sunday masses with multicolored 

Beams streaming through stained

Glass windows paid for by my 

Father other parish better-offs

Their names inscribed modestly 

But legibly at the bottom eye

Level where people could see

Far more churchlike is the 

Monument for the caskets of 

Garfield and his wife which

Had more the air of a

Sanctuary its dome decorated

With winged creatures in white 

Robes labelled for civic virtues

The color the style so matched

What I’d call religious now

Bent to honor secular value

A bit overmuch I thought it wryly

Unsettling to find sacramentalesque

Where I'd expect church

State better separated the age 

May not have realized a century 

Later we'd find it improper

If not mildly offensive down

Right humorous I would have

Thought such solemnity apropos

For a governmental figure the

Stature of Lincoln FDR not some 

Guy whose claim to fame 

Was reform of the post office 

Civil service whose term was

Two hundred days who was shot 

For an intraparty squabble who 

Died of a wound we are told 

Many today would have survived 

He too had his doctors known 

Enough to wash their hands 

Before probing the wound

For the bullet when I need an

Image of bombast there's nothing

Like Garfield’s monument

At Lakeview Cemetery

c. J.S.Manista, 2015